Of the education of Spanish women, Mrs. Donn Piatt states that, by reason of the small fortunes of the nobility, the daughters of an ancient house must be made useful before they are accomplished; that the first consideration, however, is their religious education, to which, and to the preparation for confirmation--the great juvenile rite of Catholic countries--the utmost care and attention are devoted. Next after their religious tuition, the greatest pains are taken to make them accomplished housekeepers. They are taught to make their own clothes, to keep accounts, to regulate their expenditure, and to attend to the most minute details of the family economy. The advantages of a good solid education are not neglected; their natural capacity and innate taste for the arts, especially as musicians and painters, rapidly develop themselves, under very moderate tuition, to acquirements of a superior character, and the productions of young women of high station are spoken of with much admiration. One trait of Spanish character that speaks loudly in favor of the women is the devotion, respect, and obedience paid by sons to their mothers long after age has relieved them from maternal tutelage. In Madrid there is a hospital for foundlings, which are said to amount to about four thousand annually. These are actual foundlings, exposed publicly to the compassion of the charitable. It is principally served by the Sisters of Charity. The infants are intrusted to nurses, and at the age of seven they are transferred to the _Desamparados_ (unprotected) college, where they receive instruction in the simpler rudiments of education, and their religious and moral training is cared for. There is also an asylum to which others are drafted to learn some practical handicraft, such as glove-making, straw-hat making, embroidery, etc., and which seems, in a great measure, a self-supporting institution. There are three Magdalen Hospitals: St. Nicholas de Barr, founded in 1691 for women of the better class, who are banished for misconduct from the homes of their husbands and fathers; that of the _Arrepentidos_, for penitents; and that of the _Recogidos_, founded in 1637, for the correction of women sent there by their families, in order that they may be induced to return to the paths of virtue. CHAPTER XIII. PORTUGAL. Conventual Life in 1780.--Depravity of Women.--Laws against Adultery and Rape.--Venereal Disease.--Illegitimacy.--Foundling Hospitals of Lisbon and Oporto.--Singular Institutions for Wives.